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Updated: June 5, 2025
A very small and very modestly-dressed Halictus, much busier and in far greater numbers, was flitting silently from blossom to blossom. Official science calls her Halictus malachurus, K. The pretty little Bee's godfather strikes me as ill-inspired. What has malachurus, calling attention to the softness of the rump, to do in this connection?
This is the rule, even among Bees and Wasps established in a populous colony on a common site. Close neighbourhood implies no sort of intimate relationship. Great therefore is my surprise as I watch the Cylindrical Halictus' operations. She forms no society, in the entomological sense of the word: there is no common family; and the general interest does not engross the attention of the individual.
When the marriage is consummated, the red-belted one quits the spot and goes to die outside the burrow, after dragging from flower to flower the bit of life that remains to him. The other shuts herself up in her cell, there to await the return of the month of May. September is spent by the Halictus solely in nuptial celebrations.
Thus it is ordained by the economics of the Halictus. An egg bent like a bow is laid upon the sphere. According to the generally-accepted rule, it now only remains to close the cabin. Honey-gatherers Anthophorae, Osmiae, Mason-bees and many others usually first collect a sufficient stock of food and then, having laid the egg, shut up the cell, to which they need pay no more attention.
No, rest is hardly the word. She still works, she assists the household to the best of her power. Incapable of being a mother for a second time, she becomes a portress, opens the door to the members of her family and makes strangers keep their distance. No less suspicious, the grandmother says to each comer: 'Show me the yellow foot of an Halictus, or you won't be let in.
Why should she put herself out? the meeting is so peaceful that, short of further information, one would not suspect that a destroyer and destroyed were face to face. Far from being intimidated by the sudden arrival of the Halictus, the Gnat pays hardly any attention; and, in the same way, the Halictus takes no notice of her persecutress, unless the bandit pursue her and worry her on the wing.
His corpse, a mere atom, blended with the remaining provisions, supplies the maggots with one mouthful the more. And what does the Halictus mother do in this disaster? She is free to visit her grubs at any moment; she has but to put her head into the passage of the house: she cannot fail to be apprised of their distress. The squandered loaf, the swarming mass of vermin tell their own tale.
How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus' door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring are not repeated.
And work is the great delight, the real satisfaction that gives some value to life. The Halictus knows this well and assembles in her numbers that she may work all the better. Sometimes she assembles in such multitudes and over such extents of ground as to suggest our own colossal swarms.
It is an Halictus, who has become the portress of the establishment. With her large head, she makes an impassable barrier at the top of the entrance-hall. If any one belonging to the house wants to go in or out, she 'pulls the cord, that is to say, she withdraws to a spot where the gallery becomes wider and leaves room for two. The other passes.
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